In the Beginning God: DNA and Its Lessons

Crawford, Norman

The words of Romans 1:18-23 have special significance in the light of the subject of this article. Verses 19 and 20 read: “Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath showed it unto them. For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse.”

Our young people are plunged into a world where evolution is taken for granted. According to most of the textbooks on natural science used in the educational system, evolution is to be accepted as a fact. Recent debate has attempted to dismiss any proofs Intelligent Design presents as being “religious prejudice.” Although neutrality is professedly the aim of the courts when they press the use of “The Non-establishment Clause,” hostility has been the result. Christians are charged with coming to the subject with a presupposition that “God is.” We freely confess this to be true, but we also believe that evolutionists have the presupposition that “God is not.” God has been dismissed from His own creation.

In 1953, Francis Crick and James D. Watson discovered the genetic structure of DNA that is embedded in the nucleus of our cells. DNA is an essential component of all living things and is the source of the genetic code that transmits hereditary information. This discovery seriously challenges every naturalistic theory of the origin of life. Half a century of research has confirmed this great discovery, and has been able in a limited way to decipher it, but it is so complex that there is still much to learn. The detailed information that enables DNA to produce proteins is contained in a “language” made from three billion genetic “letters.” Each DNA molecule is only two millionths of a millimeter thick, yet contains not only a language, but also a vast library of the information necessary for life. If Naturalism cannot explain the source of this information, then it cannot claim to know the origin of life.

Proteins are the building blocks of natural life. They are made up of a complex union of amino acids and contain such elements as carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen. Life, as we know it on the physical level, cannot exist without proteins. DNA produces these proteins. Their production has been likened to a complex machine that is capable of performing thousands of functions. This molecular assembly line builds a chain of amino acids often hundreds of units long. Folding the chain into a protein, it is then released and sent to the exact location where it is needed. These many functions are coordinated by different parts of the machine. If such a machine were designed and built by men, we would say that they were geniuses. Is this not intelligent design?

In this computer age, we have become accustomed to software programs that use a computer language. Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, has commented: “DNA is like a software program, only much more complicated than anything we’ve ever devised.” Mr. Gates assembled a group of people with the highest levels of intelligence to create his software systems. Can we believe that the far superior systems of living cells were produced without intelligent design?

Michael Denton, a molecular biologist, in his book Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, writes: “One teaspoon of DNA could contain all the information needed to build every protein that has ever existed, and there would still be enough room left for all the information in every book ever written… the mountain of information even in one microscopic DNA cell vastly exceeds any other known system.”

The DNA carries this vast library of information, but the information is distinct from the carrier. A book is made of paper, ink, and glue, but its information is distinct from these material substances. Who put the information there? No one would suggest that the paper produced the information. Did it originate without an intelligent source, without a plan or a purpose, merely by chance as evolutionary theories demand? A major problem with these theories is that there is not a scintilla of evidence that anything is ever produced from nothing, especially life. Dr. Edwin Conklin of Princeton has written: “To suppose that the simplest life form was produced by chance, plus time, is the same as supposing that Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary was produced by an explosion in a printing shop.” The human body contains something like one hundred trillion cells. All the scientific laboratories in the world have not been able to produce one living cell, unless it is from a living source. Only Supreme Intelligence can be the source of life, not mutation, natural selection, or accident, even if the evolutionist attempts to factor in somewhere between seven million and five billion years.

At a conference on Genetics in Chicago, about 1975, Francis Crick and James D. Watson released the results of their DNA study of human placentas. The conclusion was that all of the human race, of whatever color, came from one mother. If an evolutionary process produced human beings over millions of years, then it happened only once and one person was produced. If this is true, it would not fit any theory of evolution we have ever known.

Let us be clear on this subject that even one living cell is so complex in its design and function that only the One Who is the Source of all life and laid down His life for our salvation could be the Creator of all life. “For by Him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by Him, and for Him: And He is before all things, and by Him all things consist” (Col 1:16-17).